Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. "I don't know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn't say," Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. "I'd tell him: don't worry, we...
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NAFED defers onion imports from Pakistan by Sukay Mehdudia
In the wake of a fall in onion prices in the wholesale markets across the country, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) on Thursday said it had deferred imports from Pakistan. “Earlier, we decided to send our officers to Pakistan for importing 2,200 tonnes of onion. However, as the prices have started declining, we have deferred the onion import plan for the time being,'' NAFED chairman Bijender...
More »The great onion robbery: 135% mark-up from mandi to retail by Subodh Varma
Speculative traders are making super-profits by fixing prices in the onion trade while the government is playing around with ad hoc fixes. On Tuesday alone, wholesale traders in Delhi bought onions at about Rs 34 per kg while it was sold in retail at Rs 80 per kg. That's a margin of Rs 46 per kg or 135%! About 11,445 quintals of onion were bought in the Delhi wholesale markets on...
More »African farmers displaced as investors move in by Neil MacFarquhar
Stunned villagers are finding that governments have been leasing land, often for decades. The half-dozen strangers who descended on this remote West African village brought its hand-to-mouth farmers alarming news: their humble fields, tilled from one generation to the next, were now controlled by Libya's leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the farmers would all have to leave. “They told us this would be the last rainy season for us to cultivate our...
More »Onion prices will remain high for the next 3 weeks: Pawar
The government has said prices of onions are likely to remain high for the next three weeks, but the situation will improve thereafter in the wake of its move to ban exports of the commodity. "Onion prices will remain high for the next three weeks and the situation is likely to improve only after two to three weeks. The ban on onion exports should help reduce prices," Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar...
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